Kestrel Trajan Quotes

She had dreams that shamed her in the morning, dreams where Ronan gave her a white powdered cake, yet spoke in Arin's voice. I made this for you, he said. Do you like it?
The powder was so fine that she inhaled its sweetness, but always woke before she could taste. ~ Marie Rutkoski

When she saw the opportunity to flee, she would take it. She would bring the hounds of the empire howling down on this city. ~ Marie Rutkoski

She thought of the hawk, which must have winged its way to her father by now. SHe imagined it slewing aruond trees, dropping down. Talons closing around his upraised fist. Her father unrolling the coded message. The trap she'd set for him.

Walk into it , she willed.

You have a mind for strategy , he'd said once.

Come see, then.

See what I can do to you. See what you have done to me. ~ Marie Rutkoski

He said, "How can the inconsequence of your life not shame you?"
He said, "How do you not feel empty?"
I do, she thought as she pushed through the library doors and let them thud behind her. I do. ~ Marie Rutkoski

Once there was a girl who was too sure of herself. Not everyone would call her beautiful, but they admitted that she had a certain grace that intimidated more often than it charmed. She was not, society agreed, someone you wanted to cross. She keeps her heart in a porcelain box, people whispered, and they were right. ~ Marie Rutkoski

I want to speak with her alone," Cheat told Sarsine.
She said, "Arin--"
"--is not the leader of the Herrani. I am."
"We'll see how long that lasts," said Kestrel, then bit her lip. He saw her do it, and they both knew what it meant.
A mistake. ~ Marie Rutkoski

He led her to the dressing room, opened the wardrobe, and riffled through her clothes. He pulled out a black tunic, leggings, and jacket and thrust them at Kestrel.
Coolly she said, "This is a ceremonial fighting uniform. Do you expect me to fight a duel on the docks? ~ Marie Rutkoski

Look at that ship. That clipper cost me a queen's ransom, even with the Kestrel thrown in the bargain. But it was the fastest ship to be had." He took her hands in his. "Forget money. Forget society. Forget expectations. We've no talent for following rules, remember? We have to follow our hearts. You taught me that."
He gathered her to him, drawing her hands to his chest. "God, sweet, don't you know? You've had my heart in your pocket since the day we met. Following my heart means following you. I'll follow you to the ends of the earth if I have to." He shot an amused glance at the captain. "Though I'd expect your good captain would prefer I didn't. In fact, I think he'd gladly marry us today, just to be rid of me."
"Today? But we couldn't."
His eyebrows lifted. "Oh, but we could." He pulled her to the other side of the ship, slightly away from the gaping crowd. Wrapping his arms around her, he leaned close to whisper in her ear, "Happy birthday, love."
Sophia melted in his embrace. It was her birthday, wasn't it? The day she'd been anticipating for months, and here she'd forgotten it completely. Until Gray had appeared on the horizon, she hadn't been looking forward to anything.
But now she did. She looked forward to marriage, and children, and love and grand adventure. Real life and true passion. All of it with this man. "Oh, Gray."
"Please say yes," he whispered. "Sophia." The name was a caress against her ear. "I love you."
He kissed her ~ Tessa Dare

A singer who refused to sing, a friend who wasn't her friend, someone who was hers and yet would never be hers.
Kestrel looked away from Arin.
She swore to herself that she would never look back ~ Marie Rutkoski

It looked like she held a basketful of woven gold.
Arin leap down the stairs. He strode up to his cousin and seized her arm.
"Arin!"
"What did you do?"
Sarsine jerked away. "What she wanted. Pull yourself together."
But Arin only saw Kestrel as she had been last night before the ball. How her hair had been a spill of low light over his palms. He had threaded desire into those braids, had wanted her to sense it even as he dreaded that she would. He had met her eyes in the mirror, and didn't know, couldn't tell her feelings. He only knew the fire of his own.
"It's just hair," Sarsine said. "It will grow back."
"Yes," said Arin, "but no everything does. ~ Marie Rutkoski

Arin remmembered seeing her hand in Javelin's mane, curling into the coarse strands. This made him remember the almost freakish lenghth between her littlest finger and thumb as her hand spanned piano keys. The black star of the birth-mark. He saw her again in the imperial palace. Her music room. He'd seen that room only once. About a month ago, right before Firstsummer. Her blue sleeves were fastened at the wrist.
Something tugged inside him. A flutter of unease.
Do you sing? Those had been her first words to him, the day she had bought him. A band of nausea circled Arin's throat, just as it had when she had asked him that question, in part for the same reason. She'd had no trace of an accent. She had spoken in perfect, natural, mother-taught Herrani. ~ Marie Rutkoski

You have to do something," Kestrel had said.
The woman blinked, bleary-eyed.
"Go tell the guards to let Smith out. He's imprisoned in the barracks. He--"
"I know," the woman had said. "He's been released."
"He has? By whom?"
The slave looked away. "It was Rax's decision. He said you could complain to him if you didn't like it."
Those last words sounded like a lie. They didn't even make sense. But the woman patted her hand and said, "I saw Smith myself, in the slaves' quarters. He's not too worse for wear. Don't worry, my lady." The face of the woman, whose name Kestrel had forgotten, filled with such sympathy that she had told her to leave.
Kestrel remembered the woman's expression. She looked at the shredded letter and saw again its written words--so snide, so understanding.
They didn't understand. No one did. They were wrong.
Kestrel slipped back under the blankets.
Some hours later, she called for a slave and asked her to open a window. Cold air poured in, and Kestrel shivered until she heard a distant ringing, the sound of hammer against anvil. Arin must know that she couldn't come to him. Why didn't he come to her?
She could make him. If she sent an order, he would obey.
But she didn't want his obedience. She wanted him to want to see her.
Kestrel flinched at this thought and the pain it brought with it.
She knew that even if everyone believed the wrong thing of her, they were also too close to being ~ Marie Rutkoski

You should have let me visit earlier," Jess said, her cheeks radiant from the brisk air outside. "It's been a week since the duel."
Kestrel sank back against the pillows. She had known the sight of Jess would hurt, would remind her that there was a life outside this bedroom. "Ronan isn't allowed."
"I should say not! I'm not letting him see you until you're better. You look awful. No one wants to kiss an invalid."
"Thank you, Jess. I'm so happy you've come. ~ Marie Rutkoski

The beauty of the flute was in its simplicity, in its resemblance to the human voice. It always sounded clear. It sounded alone. The piano, on the other hand, was a network of parts - a ship, with its strings like rigging, its case a hull, its lifted lid a sail. Kestrel always thought that the piano didn't sound like a single instrument but a twinned one, with its low and high halves merging together or pulling apart. ~ Marie Rutkoski

You're good at this," said Ronan.
"What?"
He leaned to touch the baby's head. "Being a mother."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
Ronan looked awkward. Then he said glibly, "Nothing, if you don't like it." He glanced at Benix, Faris, and the others, but they were discussing thumbscrews and nooses. "It didn't mean anything. I take it back."
Kestrel set the baby on the grass next to Faris. "You cannot take it back."
"Just this once," he said, echoing her earlier words during the game.
She stood and walked away.
He followed. "Come, Kestrel. I spoke only the truth."
They had entered the shade of thickly grown laran trees, whose leaves were a bloody color. They would soon fall.
"It's not that I wouldn't want to have a child someday," Kestrel told Ronan.
Visibly relieved, he said, "Good. The empire needs new life."
It did. She knew this. As the Valorian empire stretched across the continent, it faced the problem of keeping what it had won. The solutions were military prowess and boosting the Valorian population, so the emperor prohibited any activities that unnecessarily endangered Valorian lives--like dueling and the bull-jumping games that used to mark coming-of-age ceremonies. Marriage became mandatory by the age of twenty for anyone who was not a soldier.
"It's just--" Kestrel tried again: "Ronan, I feel trapped. Between what my father wants and--"
He held up his hands in flat-palmed defense. "I am not trying ~ Marie Rutkoski

Well, I think they make a charming couple."
"What?"
"The prince and Lady Kestrel."
Arin had known whom Tensen had meant.
"Their kiss was sweet," said the spymaster. "One would assume their marriage was just a political alliance--I certainly did, until I saw them kiss."
Arin stared.
"You must have missed it," Tensen said. "It was at the beginning of the ball. But of course you were late."
"Yes," Arin said finally. "I was. ~ Marie Rutkoski

Arin's expression changed. She saw how he read her stillness. She wondered if she'd gone pale. Anxiety stole over his features. "Kestrel, can I have a word with you?"
Outside the tent, night had come.
He cupped her face in his hands. "You don't look right."
"I'm fine."
"No. You look like a part of you has disappeared. Like you're not really here. Like"--his hands fell away--"you do when you're plotting something."
Which was how Kestrel realized that she was plotting something. That growing briar inside her was an idea.
"Kestrel."
She blinked, then noticed the hurt shape of his mouth. Arin said, "Tell me." She started to speak. He cut through her first words. "No deceiving," he said.
"I wouldn't."
"Not again. After everything. Don't keep me in the dark."
"Arin, for someone who wants me to tell him something, you're doing an excellent job of not letting me speak."
"Oh." Rubbing a forefinger and thumb into his eyes, he gave her a rueful look. "Sorry. ~ Marie Rutkoski

I can go with you into the mountains," she said. "I can search, too."
His smile was dry. "You're not the one who spent hours as a child poring over botany books, wondering why one species of tree had four-fingered leaves, and another, six."
The swaying of the carriage made Kestrel drowsy. Hours of lost sleep weighted her eyelids. She struggled to keep them open. Outside the window, dusk had given in to the night.
"You have less than three days," she murmured.
"What?"
"Before the reinforcements arrive."
When he said nothing, Kestrel voiced what he must be thinking. "I suppose it's not the time for you to be hunting in the mountains for a plant."
"I promised I would go. So I will. ~ Marie Rutkoski

Arin," she said, searching his face. "Was it my house? I mean, the villa. Did you live there, before the war?"
He yanked on the reins. His stallion ground to a halt.
When he spoke, Arin's voice was like the music he had asked her to play. "No," he said. "That family is gone."
They rode on in silence until Arin said, "Kestrel."
She waited, then realized that he wasn't speaking to her, exactly. He was simply saying her name, considering it, exploring the syllables of the Valorian word.
She said, "I hope you're not going to pretend you don't know what it means."
He shot her a wry, sidelong look. "A kestrel is a hunting hawk."
"Yes. The perfect name for a warrior girl."
"Well." His smile was slight, but it was there. "I suppose neither of us is the person we were believed we would become. ~ Marie Rutkoski

She thought that she had been seeking a light distraction. But when she heard the clang of metal on metal and saw Arin scraping a shaft of steel across the anvil with one set of tools and beating at it with another, Kestrel knew she had come to the wrong place.
"Yes?" he said, keeping his back to her. His workshirt was soaked through with sweat. His hands were sooty. He left the blade of the sword to cool on the anvil and moved to place another, shorter length of metal on the fire, which lined his profile with unsteady light.
She willed her voice to be her own. "I thought we could play a game."
His dark brows drew together.
"Of Bite and Sting," Kestrel said. More firmly, she added, "You implied you know how to play."
He used tongs to stoke the fire. "I did."
"You implied that you could beat me."
"I implied that there was no reason a Valorian would want to play with a Herrani."
"No, you worded things carefully so that what you said could be interpreted that way. But that isn't what you meant."
He faced her then, arms folded across his chest. "I have no time for games." The tips of his fingers had black rings of charcoal dust buried under the nail and into the cuticle. "I have work to do."
"Not if I say you don't."
He turned away. "I like to finish what I start."
She meant to leave. She meant to leave him to the noise and heat. She meant to say nothing more. Instead, Kestrel found herself issuing a challenge. "You are ~ Marie Rutkoski

The true key to the declension of the Roman empire which is not to be found in all Gibbon 's immense work may be stated in two words: the imperial character overlaying, and finally destroying, the national character. Rome under Trajan was an empire without a nation. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Someone--a man--came up behind her and snaked an arm around her waist.
Not flirtation. Aggression.
Kestrel sidestepped and spun, pulling her dagger from its sheath.
Irex. His dagger was drawn, too.
"A fight, dear Kestrel?" His stance was easy. He didn't know how to play Bite and Sting, but his skill at weapons outmatched hers.
"Not here," she said stiffly.
"No, not here." His voice was soft. "But anywhere, if you want it."
"Exactly what do you think you are doing, Irex?"
"You mean, a moment ago? Oh, I don't know. Maybe I was trying to pick your pocket." His tone hinted at a coarse double meaning.
Kestrel slid her dagger into its sheath. "Theft is the only way you will get my gold." She walked from the cover of trees and saw, with shaky gratitude, that the party was still there, that the sound of porcelain and spoons still tinkled over low talk, and that no one had noticed anything.
No one, except perhaps Arin. He was waiting for her. She felt a flash of something unpleasant--embarrassment, perhaps, as she wondered how much of this afternoon he had overheard. Dismay to think that he might have witnessed that last exchange with Irex, and misunderstood it. Or was she troubled by something else? Maybe it was the thought that Arin knew perfectly well what had been taking place behind the trees and had made no move to interfere, to help.
It was not his place to interfere, she reminded herself. She had not needed his help.
Marie Rutkoski

This is me figuring good behavior is for someone much younger.
Kestrel ~ Sarah Purdy Gilman

The city will be ours." Cheat rested a hand on Arin's shoulder and gripped it. "Freedom will be ours."
Those words sliced through the knots tangled within Arin. He slowly nodded. He turned toward the window.
"What're you doing?" Cheat said. "You risked enough coming here, and you'll risk the same returning to the estate. Stay. I can hide you until the assault."
Why won't you look at me? Kestrel had said. The hurt in her voice had hurt him. It hurt him still. It made him remember how his father had given him a blown-glass horse for his eighth nameday. Arin remembered its tapered legs, the arched neck: a thing of starlike clarity. He had fumbled, and it had smashed on the tiles below.
"No," Arin told Cheat. "I'm going back. I need to be there when it happens. ~ Marie Rutkoski

She had sworn to herself not to speak to Arin, but then he said, "You're coming with me to the harbor."
This surprised her into saying, "To do what? Why not lock me up in the barracks? It would be a perfect prison for your prize."
He continued to walk her down the halls of her home. "Unless Cheat changes his mind about you."
Kestrel imagined the auctioneer unlocking her cell door. "I suppose I'm no good to you dead."
"I would never let that happen."
"What a touching concern for Valorian life. As if you hadn't let your leader kill that woman. As if you're not responsible for the death of my friends."
They stopped before the door to Kestrel's suite. Arin faced her. "I will let every single Valorian in this city die if it means that you don't."
"Like Jess?" Her eyes swam with sudden, unshed tears. "Ronan?"
Arin looked away. The skin above his eye was beginning to blacken from where she had kicked him. "I spent ten years as a slave. I couldn't be one anymore. What did you imagine, tonight, in the carriage? That it would be fine for me to always be afraid to touch you?"
"That has nothing to do with anything. I am not a fool. You sold yourself to me with the intention of betrayal."
"But I didn't know you. I didn't know how you--"
"You're right. You don't know me. You're a stranger."
He flattened a palm against the door.
"What about the Valorian children?" she demanded. "What have you done with them? Have they been poi ~ Marie Rutkoski

I know you regret the purchase, but there are worse places for him to be."
Kestrel realized that she no longer did regret the purchase and frowned. What kind of person had she become, to feel that way?
"I gave him house privileges," she said, knowing that her tone was defensive. "He also often serves as my escort into the city."
Enai swallowed some syrup and made a face. "Yes, I heard from the others. Does society talk about it?"
"About what?"
"About Smith. Does society talk about him appearing as your escort?"
"Not to my knowledge. There was some gossip about the price I paid for him, but everyone's forgotten that."
"That may be, but I would think he'd still draw attention."
Kestrel searched the woman's face. "Enai, what are you trying to say? Why would people talk about him?"
Enai studied the very plain syrup pot. Finally, she said, "Because of how he looks."
"Oh." Kestrel was relieved. "Once he's dressed in house attire he doesn't appear so rough. He holds himself well." This thought seemed ready to give rise to other thoughts, but she shook her head. "No, I don't think he would give anyone cause to complain about his appearance."
Enai said, "I'm sure you're right."
Kestrel had the sense that the woman's words were less an agreement than a decision to let some unspoken matter drop. ~ Marie Rutkoski

Afternoon tipped toward evening. It was almost one full day since the Firstwinter ball, and more since Kestrel had slept. She stayed awake, staring at the outermost door to her rooms.
Arin opened it. Then he stepped back, inhaling as if she had frightened him. His hand tightened on the doorjamb, and he stared. Yet he said nothing of the fact that she still wore her black dueling uniform. He didn't mention the jagged ends of hair brushing her shoulders.
"You need to come with me," he said.
"To see Jess?"
His mouth thinned. "No."
"You said you would take me. Apparently there is no such thing as Herrani honor."
"I will as soon as I can. Right now, I can't."
"When?"
"Kestrel, Cheat is here. He wants to see you."
Her hands curled shut.
Arin said, "I can't say no."
"Because you're a coward."
"Because if I do, things will go worse for you."
Kestrel lifted her chin. "I will come," she said, "if you never again pretend that anything you do is on my behalf."
Arin didn't comment on the obvious: that she had no choice in the matter. He simply nodded. "Be careful," he said. ~ Marie Rutkoski

Little Fists, what's wrong? ~ Marie Rutkoski

Marry him," Arin said, "but be mine in secret. ~ Marie Rutkoski

It seemed to Kestrel that her life had taken the shape of a folded knife, her heart a blade inside a body of wood. ~ Marie Rutkoski

Kestrel felt Arin's tension, the way he looked at the prince. Arin's worry was plain, his hands still at his sides yet slightly open, as if his friend might shatter and Arin needed to be ready to catch the pieces. ~ Marie Rutkoski

He's going to pack it with wet, sterile gauze instead," Verex explained. "It will heal slowly, from the inside out." The prince's voice was strong and sure. He was turning the grim words of the physician into something hopeful. "Really, that's the best way to avoid infection, because the wound can be cleaned out daily."
The physician gave him a sidelong look. "I'm not sure I need the commentary." But Kestrel did, and Verex knew that she did. ~ Marie Rutkoski

Flute music, she thought with frustration, and would not look at Arin.
Her opening notes were awkward. She paused, then gave the melody over to her right hand and began inventing with her left, pulling dark, rich phrases out of her mind. Kestrel felt the counterpoint knit itself into being. Forgetting the difficulty of what she was doing, she simply played.
It was a gentle, haunting music. When it ended, Kestrel was sorry. Her eyes sought Ari across the room.
She didn't know if he had watched her play. He wasn't looking at her now. His gaze was unfocused, directed toward the garden without really seeming to see it. The lines of his face had softened. He looked different, Kestrel realized. She couldn't say why, but he looked different to her now.
Then he glanced at her, and she was startled enough to let one hand fall onto the keys with a very unmusical sound.
Arin smiled. It was a true smile, which let her know that all the others he had given her were not. "Thank you," he said.
Kestrel felt herself blush. She focused on the keys and played something, anything. A simple pattern to distract herself from the fact that she wasn't someone who easily blushed, particularly for no clear reason.
But she found that her fingers were sketching an outline of a tenor's range. "Do you truly not sing?"
"No."
She considered the timbre of his voice and let her hands drift lower. "Really?"
"No, Kestrel."
Her hands slid from the keys. "Too ~ Marie Rutkoski

The general's daughter? We'd be fools not to. You talk about her as if she's made of spun glass. Know what I see? Steel. ~ Marie Rutkoski

Absurd. It was absurd to think that someone like that could have any power over him. Yet she would, if she won the auction.
He wanted her to. The thought swept Arin with a merciless, ugly joy. He'd never seen her before, but he guessed who she was: Lady Kestrel, General Trajan's daughter.
The crowd heard her bid. And at once it seemed that Arin was worth something after all. ~ Marie Rutkoski

Arin would trade his heart for a snarled knot of thread if it meant he would never have to see Kestrel again. ~ Marie Rutkoski

As she passed the door to Gray's study, a familiar, muscled arm shot out into the corridor, catching her by the waist.
Laughing, she stumbled into the room, quickly finding herself caught between cool walnut paneling at her back and the hot, solid wall of man before her. Ever since their wedding-or since the Kestrel storeroom, more likely-Gray seemed to find it an irresistible challenge, to catch her unawares in an unlikely location and pull her into a feverish embrace.
Sophia had no wish to discourage the habit, but this wasn't the ideal time for a tryst. "Gray," she chided between kisses, "what are you about? The housekeeper said there was an urgent matter requiring my attention."
"And so there is. I require your attention. Most urgently." His hand slid to her bottom, and he lifted her easily, pinning her to the wall with his hips. The beaded ridges of the wainscoting dug into her spine. "Don't think we've used this room yet," he murmured, nibbling at the curve of her neck.
"I'm entertaining," she protested.
"Yes, you are," he said, grinding against her. "Highly entertaining."
Sophia sighed with pleasurable frustration. "I mean, I have a guest. Lady Kendall's in the salon, with Bel." She levered her arm against his chest, carving out some space between them. "And I thought you were at your shipping office."
"Yes, well…" Mischief gleamed sharp in his eyes. "I decided to go riding instead. ~ Tessa Dare

As he rowed the launch toward Wensan's ship, which was Herrani-made and studded with Valorian cannon, Arin remembered the exhaustion of that work, but also how it had corded his muscles until the ache in his arms became stone. He was grateful to the Valorians for having made him strong. If he was strong enough, he might live through this night. If he lived, he could reclaim the shreds of who he had been, and explain himself to Kestrel in a way she would understand.
She sat silent next to him in the launch. The other Herrani at the oars watched as she lifted her bound hands to tug at the black cloth covering her hair. It was an awkard business. It was also necessary, since a new twist in the plan called for Kestrel to be seen and recognized.
The Herrani watched her struggle. They watched Arin drop an oar in its lock to offer a hand. She flinched hard enough that her shifted weight shook the boat It was only a slight tremor along wood, but they all felt it.
Shame ate into his gut.
Kestrel pulled the cloth from her head. Even though clouds swelled in the sky, swallowing the moon and deepening the dark around them, Kestrel's hair and pale skin seemed to glow. It looked like she was lit from within.
It wasn't something Arin could bear to see. He returned to the oars and rowed.
Arin knew, far better than any of the ten Herrani in the launch, that Kestrel could be devious. That he shouldn't trust her plan any more than he should have fallen for her ploy ~ Marie Rutkoski

Why can't you marry him?" he whispered.
She broke her word to herself and looked at him. "Because of you."
Arin's hand flinched against her cheek. His dark head bowed, became lost in its own shadow. Then he slipped from his seat and knelt before hers. His hands fell to the fists on her lap and gently opened them. He held them as if cupping water. He took a breath to speak.
She would have stopped him. She would have wished herself deaf, blind, made of unfeeling smoke. She would have stopped his words out of terror, longing. The way terror and longing had become indistinguishable.
Yet his hands held hers, and she could do nothing.
He said, "I want the same thing you want."
Kestrel pulled back. It wasn't possible his words could mean what they seemed.
"It hasn't been easy for me to want it." Arin lifted his face so that she could see his expression. A rich emotion played across his features, offered itself, and asked to be called by its name.
Hope. ~ Marie Rutkoski

I love you. Is that reason enough?"
Maybe. Maybe it would have been. But as the music drained from the air, Kestrel saw Arin on the fringes of the crowd. He watched her, his expression oddly desperate. As if he, too, were losing something, or it was already lost.
She saw him and didn't understand how she had ever missed his beauty. How it didn't always strike her as it did now, like a blow.
"No," Kestrel whispered.
"What?" Ronan's voice cut into the quiet.
"I'm sorry."
Ronan swiveled to find the target of Kestrel's gaze. He swore.
Kestrel walked away, pushing past slaves bearing trays laden with glasses of pale gold wine. The lights and people blurred in her stinging eyes. She walked through the doors, down a hall, out of the palace, and into the cold night, knowing without seeing or hearing or touching him that Arin was at her side. ~ Marie Rutkoski

He ought to be up there, guarding the pass, or at least striving in some way to keep his country.
His. The thought never failed to thrill him. It was worth death. Worth almost anything to become again the person he had been before the Herran War. Yet here he was, gambling the frail odds of success.
Looking for a plant.
He imagined Cheat's reaction if he could see him now, scouring the ground for a wrinkle of faded green. There would be mockery, which Arin could shrug off, and rage, which Arin could withstand--even understand. But he couldn't bear what he saw in his mind.
Cheat's eyes cutting to Kestrel. Targeting her, stoking his hatred with one more reason.
And the more Arin tried to shield her, the more Cheat's dislike grew.
Arin's hands clenched in the cold. He blew on them, tucked his fingers under his arms, and began to walk.
He should let her go. Let her slip into the countryside, to the isolated farmlands that had no idea of the revolution.
If so, what then? Kestrel would alert her father. She'd find a way. Then the full force of the empire's military would fall on the peninsula, when Arin doubted that the Herrani could deal even with the battalion that would come through the pass in less than two days.
If he let Kestrel go, it was the same as murdering his people.
Arin nudged a rock with his boot and wanted to kick it.
He didn't. He walked.
Thoughts chipped at his sanity, proposing solutions only to reveal pr ~ Marie Rutkoski

I'd better have a glass then. To complete my ensemble." Kestrel didn't quite forget her promise to Arin not to drink, but rather willed it away along with everything else about him.
"Oh, yes," said Jess. "You must. Don't you think so, Ronan?"
"I don't think. I am thinking of nothing other than what Kestrel could be thinking, and whether she will dance with me. If I'm not mistaken, there is one final dance before this legendary wine is served."
Kestrel's happiness faltered. "I'd love to, but…won't your parents mind?"
Ronan and Jess exchanged a glance. "They're not here," Ronan said. "They've left to spend the winter season in the capital."
Which meant that, were they here, they would object--as would any parents, given the scandal.
Ronan read Kestrel's face. "It doesn't matter what they think. Dance with me."
He took her hand, and for the first time in a long while, she felt safe. He pulled her to the center of the floor and into the motions of the dance.
Ronan didn't speak for a few moments, then touched a slim braid that curved in a tendril along Kestrel's cheek. "This is pretty."
The memory of Arin's hands in her hair made her stiffen.
"Gorgeous?" Ronan tried again. "Transcendent? Kestrel, the right adjective hasn't been invented to describe you."
She attempted a light tone. "What will ladies do, when this kind of exaggerated flirtation is no longer the fashion? We shall be spoiled."
"You know it's not mere flirtat ~ Marie Rutkoski

How much easier everything would be if that were so. But Kestrel wouldn't let herself consider the truth. She didn't want to know its shape or see its face. ~ Marie Rutkoski